I think, if it were a real weapon, and not something pulled from a gaming file by that site's webmaster, it would, somewhere, have a reference that includes the weapon's name in Chinese characters, or a note to indicate geographically where it came from. So far, nothing on those lines.

Emma Rome, otherwise known as Ashtagon
Overall site admin for The Piazza. My moderator colour is pink!

The Palladium Book of Exotic Weapons has two illustrations labelled as sang kauw, one of which corresponds to the Chinese hook sword (although this illustration could be a single-ended spear with the "buckler" instead, line art is a bit unclear on this), the other to the weapon described in OA.

Palladium describes it as a Chinese weapon. This seems improbable, as the spelling does not seem to match any conventional romanisation schemes for Chinese characters.

Emma Rome, otherwise known as Ashtagon
Overall site admin for The Piazza. My moderator colour is pink!

It's got to be a misspelling. It doesn't look like any pin-yin or Wade-Giles romanization of anything and is almost unpronounceable. I would guess that it's real pin-yin transliteration (if it exists) would be something like songgau.

Double checking on wikipedia, gou is the conventional romanisation for 钩, the hook sword. However, the hook sword clearly has a hook on one end, a spear point on the other (hilt end), and a crescent blade near the handle. It looks nothing like the OA sang kauw.

The final clue in the puzzle is this video, which includes the hanzi: 雙鉤. Literally translated, these mean pair-hook, and appears to refer specifically to a set of two of these hook swords. And how are they read?

So I'm still left puzzled. The word's origin is reasonably clear now, but it appears to refer to a pair of hook swords, not to a single weapon as illustrated in 1e OA (and illustrated again in the image linked above). And the illustration appears to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was a real weapon. Im now at the point where I know the weapon exists, but there's no known name for it.

Chinese martial arts weapons. Never stop being weird.

Emma Rome, otherwise known as Ashtagon
Overall site admin for The Piazza. My moderator colour is pink!

I found this weapon that is almost exactly like the "sang kauw" but it only has one spear end. I would think the sang kauw may have came into being when someone just put the other spear tip on it. Since this weapon is Indian in origin perhaps "sang kauw" could be a Nepalese or Tibetan name.

So I'm still left puzzled. The word's origin is reasonably clear now, but it appears to refer to a pair of hook swords, not to a single weapon as illustrated in 1e OA (and illustrated again in the image linked above). And the illustration appears to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was a real weapon. Im now at the point where I know the weapon exists, but there's no known name for it.

They're definitely real, and have almost always been used in pairs. Hence 雙 (twin). The OA book was kind of off on a lot of things, but did its best. They're still used in Northern and some Southern Chinese Martial Arts. The name for it in English is Tiger Hook Swords or Hook Swords. Mandarin is 虎头鈎 (Tiger head hooks / Hu Tou Gou) or just 雙鈎 (twin hooks / Shuang Gou) Also, I once almost cut my toe off practicing with them. Not really related to your query, though

Yeah, mostly in Northern styles from what I have seen. I am a practitioner of Southern styles, so it's not really a thing we did. I know that competition Wushu will also do that. I, however, lack the confidence in my coordination to try some of those more flashy moves